Chapter 25 Chapter 20 Expulsion Order

The people of the northern cities of Faerûn think they understand the nature of snowstorms and the cruelty of winter, but they have never actually walked the tundra of Icewind Dale or the roads of the Spine of the World during a winter storm. Unable to truly recognize the power unleashed by the Force of Nature. One such storm came upon four friends as they passed a high pass south-east of Orkney. Driven by the violent wind, the icy snow was not so much falling on them as falling on them, and they had to lean forward just to prevent being blown away by the wind.The strong wind was constantly moving, swirling, and reversing between the alternating cliff faces, robbing them of any chance of finding a shelter, and it seemed to blow snow into their faces no matter which way they turned.Each of them was trying to come up with a plan, and had to shout their proposals at the top of their voices, pressing their lips to the ear of the person trying to communicate.

In the end, any project that hoped to spare some suffering would have to rely entirely on luck—the party needed to find a cave, or at least a hanging grotto deep enough to have walls to shield them from the wind. Drizzt stooped down the white path, setting his onyx statue on the ground in front of him.The dark elf urgently called to Guanhaifa, as if there was a big battle approaching.Drizzt stepped back a little, but not too far, and waited for the black mist to emerge, twirling, and gradually taking the shape of a black panther before coalescing into the cat itself.The drow leaned down to communicate his expectation, and the panther leaped away, briskly away in the storm, searching along the mountain walls and the many side roads that branched off from the main road.

Drizzt also set off, for the same mission.Yet the other three companions stayed close together, huddled against the wind and other potential hazards.This huddling alone prevented a total disaster, when a gust of wind pushed Catti-brie to one knee and the poor halfling fell backwards.Regis rolled frantically, trying to find balance, or at least something to hold on to. Strong and steady, Bruenor grabbed his daughter by the elbow, lifted her up, and pushed against the stumbling halfling.Catti-brie reacted instantly, throwing herself over the overhanging edge of the road, unloading Taumriel from her shoulders, her belly pressed to the ground, and her bow extended towards the halfling who was sliding.

Regis grabbed the bow the moment he was about to turn over the edge of the overhanging road, and held it tightly, otherwise he might fall, crashing all the way, until he landed on a platform hundreds of feet below, and probably after that An avalanche rained down on him.It took Catti-brie only a few seconds to drag the halfling up from the open rock face, but when she pulled him in, he was covered in white snow and shaking violently. "We can't stay out here," she called to Bruno, who was stomping up. "The storm will kill us!" "The elf will find something for us!" cried the dwarf. "He or his big cat!"

Catti-brie nodded, and Regis tried to do the same, but his trembling made the gesture look ridiculous.All three knew they would soon have little choice.All three understood that it would be best for Drizzt and Guenhwyvar to find them a bunker.And be quick. Guenhwyvar's growl came over, the sweetest sound Drizzt had heard in a long time.Through a blinding white storm, he saw the huge black panther standing on a weathered jagged block, ears pushed back, face covered in icy white. Drizzt followed a sloping course half-gliding and half-falling toward Guenhuffar, keeping the strong wind a little behind him.

He got under the big cat and looked up. "What did you find?" he asked. Guenhwyvar roared again, then leaped away.The drow rushed after them, and after walking a few hundred feet along a deep snow-covered side road, the two of them came to the bottom of a long overhang of boulders.Drizzt nodded, thinking maybe that would at least provide some cover, but then Guenhwyvar snarled and pushed him away.She stepped into the bunker, far back, where it was in shadow.The panther moved and peered more intently, and the drow understood why, for behind the sheltered area Drizzt could see a sizeable crack in the base of the stone wall.

The dark elf walked over lightly, quickly and quietly, he knelt down at the crack, his heart was excited, his piercing eyes revealed to him that there was actually a larger sheltered area inside, a cave or a passage.He reminded himself that his friends were still outside in the blizzard, and Drizzt kept plunging into the opening, struggling to keep his feet as he fell. He was in a cave, wide and full of rock beds and boulders.Most of the ground was dirt, and when he shifted his vision to the red-hot spectrum of the Underdark dwellers, he did notice a source of heat, a fire pit whose filling had only just burned out.

So the hole wasn't unoccupied, and based on where they were and the huge storm that was blowing outside, Drizzt would be really surprised if the hole was unoccupied. A moment later he saw the inhabitants, moving along the shadows of the far wall, their relatively warm bodies gleaming clearly to him.He knew immediately that they were goblins, and he could well imagine that there were more than a few goblins in this sheltered area. Drizzt considered going back outside, bringing his friends over, and taking the cave for himself.With their usual efficiency, a small band of goblins shouldn't be too much trouble for the group.

But Drizzt stopped, not out of concern for his friends.What about the moral issues involved in it?What about a group of fellows who walk into the home of another creature and drive it into deadly weather?Drizzt remembered another goblin he'd met once on a trip, long ago, in a faraway place, that creature wasn't evil.These goblins are so remote and so high in the mountains that there are few roads, they may never encounter a human, an elf, a dwarf, or any other race that is considered good.So is it acceptable that Drizzt and his friends wage a war against them for trying to steal their home?

"Hi, nice to meet you," the drow called in the goblin tongue he had learned in his days in Menzoberranzan.Although the goblin accents of the deep Underdark differed greatly from their surface relatives, he could still communicate with them fairly well. The horror on the goblin's face when it discovered that the intruder wasn't an elf but a dark elf was really obvious, the creature just approached - or just started approaching, then swiped back, disgusting Yellow eyes widened in shock. "My friends and I need shelter from the storm," Drizzt explained, standing calmly and confidently, trying to show neither hostility nor fear. "Can we join you?"

The goblin stuttered so much he couldn't even begin to answer.Surrounded by amazement, it turned and stared at one of its companions.The second goblin was the largest so far, and Drizzt guessed from what he knew of goblin culture that it was probably the leader of the tribe, who had stepped out of the shadows. "How many?" it asked Drizzt hoarsely. Drizzt watched the goblin for a moment, noting that it was better dressed than its ugly pals, wearing a tall carpenter's hat and earrings in both ears. "Five," replied the drow. "You pay gold?" "We pay gold." The big goblin laughed hoarsely, which Drizzt took to mean it agreed.The drow retreated out of the cave, leaving Guenhwyvar as a sentry, and he rushed out to find the others. It was not difficult to predict the dwarf's reaction when Drizzt told Bruenor of their agreement with the new landlord. "Bah!" growled the dwarf. "If you think I'll give a stinking goblin a piece of gold, then you must be thinking with a big rock head, elf! Or worse, you're thinking like a stinking goblin!" "They don't understand wealth very well," Drizzt replied confidently.He intentionally took this group of people out during the discussion, not wanting to waste any time in the cold outdoors.Regis, in particular, seemed to be unable to bear it anymore, trembling constantly, his teeth chattering. "A coin or two should suffice." "You can hold the copper plates in front of them while I chop them down!" Bruno growled in response. "Some people do that." Drizzt stopped and stared intently at the dwarf. "I've made a deal, right or wrong, but that's what I expect you to respect," he explained. "We don't know if these goblins deserve our punishment, and in either case, how better are we than them if we just walk in and get them out of their homes?" Bruno laughed out loud. "You're drinking holy water again, eh? Genie?" he asked. Drizzt narrowed his purple eyes. "Ah, I'll let you decide that," yielded the dwarf, "but you know my ax will always be in my hand, and if any stupid goblin does a thing wrong, or says something stupid, The spot will be covered with new paint—red paint!" Drizzt looked at Catti-brie for support, but he was surprised by the expression he saw.If the woman had any inclinations towards the debate, she seemed to be on Bruno's side.Drizzt had to wonder if he was wrong, had to wonder if he and his friends should just go in and chase the goblins away. The dark elf was the first to return to the cave, and Guenhwyvar followed closely behind.More than a few goblins backed away at the sight of the gigantic black panther, and the sight of the next visitor—a red-bearded dwarf—made many members of the humanoid tribe howl in protest, pointing with crooked fingers. point, waving his fists, jumping up and down. "You're a drow, not a dwarf!" protested the big goblin. "The duergar," Drizzt replied. "Subdwarf," he whispered from the corner of his mouth, nudging Bruno, "try to act like a duergar." Bruno gave him a suspicious look. "Dwarves!" protested the goblin leader. "The duergar," retorted Drizzt. "Don't you know the duergar? Those subdwarves, allies of the drow and the goblins of the Underdark?" There was enough truth in the dark elf's statement to put the goblin leader off guard.The subterranean dwarves of Faerûn, known as the duergar, often trade with the drow and sometimes form alliances.In the Underdark, the relationship between the duergar and the sub-goblin is basically the same as the relationship between the drow and the sub-goblin, with more tolerance than friendship.There are goblins in Menzoberranzan, and many goblins.Somebody would have to do the cleaning, after all, or give the young matron a target on which to practice the snake whip. Regis was next to come in, and the goblin chief screamed again. "Little gray dwarves," Drizzt said before the protest could gather momentum. "We use them as spies to infiltrate halfling villages." "Oh," was the answer. Catti-brie was the last to come in, and seeing her, seeing a human being, brought another round of yelling and stomping, pointing and fist-flapping. "Ah, prisoner!" said the goblin chief obscenely. Drizzt's eyes widened when he heard the words and the tone of the speech, the goblin leader's concept of human women was very obvious.The drow realized his mistake.He had once refused to admit that Nojhemu was not typical of his brutal race, a particular goblin he had encountered years before.Nojihmu is a total anomaly, really different. "What did he say?" Bruenor asked, not very well versed in the goblin language. "He said the deal was off," Drizzt replied. "He let us out." Before Bruenor had time to ask the drow what to do next, Drizzt already held the scimitar in his hand, and began to walk towards the opposite side along the uneven ground. "Drizzt?" Catti-brie called to the drow.She looked at Bruno, who was barely visible in the dim light. "Well, they started it!" bellowed the dwarf, but his growling stopped suddenly, and he called the dark elf in a tone of uncertainty, "Yes?" "Oh, yes," replied the drow. "Light a torch for my daughter, glutton!" cried Bruno cheerfully, striking his open hand with the ax and rushing forward. "Only shoot to the left, girl, until you can see me! Believe me I'll let myself lean to the right!" A pair of goblins charged at Drizzt, one on either side.The drow flitted to the right, turned around and squatted down suddenly, and stabbed forward with two scimitars.The goblin, clutching a short spear, made a good defensive move and nearly parried one of the two knives. Drizzt drew back, turned the other way, just past his friends, and let his right hand unleash a vicious chop.He felt a stabbing pain in his injured shoulder, but the "prisoner" the goblin chief had said gave him the strength to ignore the pain, a word that suggested that the goblin chief was happy to spend some time with Catti-brie. The goblin, who was coming at him, ducked under the first knife and instinctively raised his spear to prevent Drizzt from dropping the first knife down. A second horizontal knife slit its throat. A third charged right after the goblin, and suddenly lay on top of its dead companion, knocked down by a swift step and a jab, the bloody left-handed scimitar cutting straight into it. at the same time that Drizzt's right knife made tight circles around the sword that the fourth goblin thrust out. "Damn elf, you're taking all the fun away!" Bruno yelled. He charged straight at Drizzt, trying to bury his ax in the head of the goblin who was fighting back and forth with the drow.But a black figure flew over the dwarf, knocking the goblin away, pinning it under six hundred pounds of black fur and ripping claws. The cavern was suddenly illuminated by a blinding blue light, then another, and Catti-brie was putting her deadly bow to work, firing a trail of arrows that trailed the light.The first arrows lodged in the left side of the cave, but each provided enough light for her to pick out a target or two. By the third, she shot a goblin, and each subsequent shot either fatally found a target or whizzed by close enough to send the goblins scurrying about. The three friends kept up the pressure, cutting down many of the goblins, driving hordes of the cowardly creatures from their presence. Catti-brie kept firing a volley of arrows flying off to one side, not really aiming to hit anything now, because all the goblins there were huddled behind cover.But her efforts were not in vain, as she kept the creatures out of the main battle in the center of the cave. Meanwhile, Regis made his way along the other wall, climbing over boulders and stalagmites, and huddled goblins.He noticed that the goblins disappeared through a crack in the back of the cave from time to time, and the boss had already gone in. Regis waited until the goblin line paused briefly, then slipped into the deeper darkness of the inner tunnel. The fight was over in no time at all, because in fact, apart from the first three goblins who charged at Drizzt, it was basically not a fight.Goblins try more to escape than to defend themselves against powerful intruders—some even push their kin into the face of charging dwarves or leaping panthers. When a goblin tried to retreat from behind the cave, Drizzt stabbed it and Bruenor slashed it, and the fight was over. Bruenor jerked his ax back, but the lodged blade did not disengage, and he lifted the limp goblin over his shoulder. "The big one went through," grumbled the dwarf, seemingly forgetting that there was still a dead goblin hanging from the end of his axe. "Are you going to chase?" "Where's Regis?" Catti-brie called from the cave entrance. The two turned to see her crouching on the entrance ramp, lighting a torch. "Glutton doesn't do what he's told," Bruno complained. "I told him to do it!" "I don't need it when I use my bow," Catti-brie explained. "But he ran away." He called out, "Regis?" "He escaped," Bruenor whispered to Drizzt, but it didn't sound right—after the halfling's brave deeds on the outskirts of Ten-Towns, and his surprisingly good performance against the ogres, None of them felt this was an appropriate comment. "I think those ogres scare him away from fighting." Drizzt shook his head, turning slowly, scanning the cavern's boundaries, more afraid that Regis had been felled than fleeing. After a while they heard their little friend whistle merrily as he came out of the tunnel through which the goblins had escaped.He looked at Drizzt and Bruno, who stared at him in astonishment, and then he threw something at Drizzt. The drow caught it, took a good look, and then his smile really broke. A goblin ear with a gold earring. The dwarves and dark elves looked at the halfling suspiciously. "I heard what he said," Regis answered their gaze. "And I do know goblins." He snapped his tiny fingers in the air in front of the two, who were already stunned, and started walking towards Catti-brie at the other end of the cave.However, after taking a few steps, he stopped, turned around and threw the second ear to Drizzt. "What got into him?" Bruenor asked the drow calmly when Regis walked away. "Adventurous?" Drizzt asked more than a statement. "You may be right," Bruno said.He spat on the ground. "He'll have us all killed, or I'm a bearded midget." The five of them waited in the goblin cave until the rest of the storm passed, Guenhwyvar staying all night.They found a pile of kindling on the side of the cave, with some rotten meat together that they dared not cook, and Bruno lit a blazing fire near the outer entrance.Guenhwyvar stood sentry as Drizzt, Catti-brie, and Regis threw the goblin corpse down the high road.They ate and curled up by the fire.That night, they took turns on guard, sleeping two at a time, though they didn't think the wimpy goblin would be back anytime soon. Many miles to the southeast of this group of companions, another weary traveler did not have the luxury of having a companion to stand watch while he slept.Still, Wulfgar didn't think there would be many enemies out on a stormy night like this, and he leaned against the back wall, eyes closed, in a roofed corner he'd chosen for shelter. . He had dug this bunker so there were solid walls of snow to the left and right, stone walls behind, and a wall of piled snow in front of him.He knew that even if no monster or beast might find him, he would have to take short naps, because he risked being buried alive if he didn't regularly clear some of the snow ahead, and if he didn't occasionally throw a few pieces of wood into the In the fire, in such a difficult night, it is likely to be frozen to death. These were minor annoyances to the spirited barbarian, who had been raised from infancy on the harsh expanse of tundra in Icewind Dale, with the piercing north winds whistling in his ears. He also suffered harsh and chaotic tortures in Errtu's demon lair, which made him stronger. The wind moaned past the narrow entrance to Wulfgar's rock and snow shelter, a long, melancholy note that opened a portal into the barbarian's scarred heart.In this cave, in this storm, in this scale the wind sang, Wulfgar's thoughts traveled across the span of time, back in time. He recalled so many things in his childhood in the elk tribe, running on the vast and wild tundra, following the footprints of his ancestors, those hunting and rituals that have been preserved for hundreds of years. He recalled the battle that had brought him to Ten-Towns, an aggressive attack by their martial peoples on the inhabitants of the village.There, an ill-placed blow landed on the head of a particularly hard-headed dwarf, leading to Wulfgar's defeat - and this failure led to the young Wulfgar's complete fall to Bruno Warhammer's ward, with whom a firm bond was signed, Bruenor was a gruff, ill-tempered dwarf with a heart of gold, whom Wulfgar soon adopted as a father.That defeat on the battlefield brought Wulfgar to Drizzt and Catti-brie, putting him on a path that led to the end of his youth and the beginning of manhood.Yet it was this same path that led Wulfgar to the most dire of places, the lair of the demon Errtu. Outside, the wind was singing dirges, calling to his soul, as if asking him to turn back from the memory lane at once, and discard all thoughts of Errtor's hellhole. The wind was warning him, warning him... But Wulfgar was as tortured by his ego as by Errtu's torture, and he refused to turn back.Not this time.He embraces the terrible memory.He brings them into his thoughts, examines them thoroughly and rationally, tells himself that's how it used to be.It wasn't as it should be, but the simple fact that it was his past, a past he had to live with. He should try to grow from it, not cringe reflexively. The wind howled mournfully, a stern warning that he might lose himself in this pit of fear, and might enter a dark place best left untouched.But Wulfgar persisted, taking his thoughts all the way to the outskirts of the Iceshifting Sea, the final victory over Errtu. His friends are by his side. This is where the resistance lies, and the abandoned savage knows it.His friends are by his side!He forgave his former partners because he believed it had to be done.He'd run away from them, especially from Catti-brie, because he couldn't show them what he had really become: a fallen wretch, a shell of former glory. Wulfgar paused in his contemplation, and threw the last few pieces of wood into the fire.He adjusted the stones placed over the flames, which absorb the heat and hold it for a while.He pushed a stone away from the fire, rolled it under his bedding, and adjusted it under the fabric so he could rest comfortably on it. He did just that, and felt a new heat rising from below, but this newfound comfort couldn't erase or push back the wall of doubt. "So, how am I now?" the Savage demanded an answer from Wind, but Wind just continued to wail dejectedly. The wind had no answer, and neither did he. Dawn was clear and bright the next morning, and the blazing sun climbed into the cloudless eastern sky, raising the temperature to a comfortable level and beginning to melt the snow and ice of the previous day. Drizzt looked at the sight, felt the warmth, and had a mixed feeling in his heart, because he and everyone else were happy to feel out of the woods, but they all knew what the sun after the snowstorm could do to the mountain roads Such a danger.This day they will have to walk with special care, with every step to beware of avalanches. The drow looked back at the cave, where his three companions were sleeping, resting easily, hoping to continue on their way.With a little luck, they might be able to reach the coast on this day and start searching for Sanctuary Valley and Sheila Kree in earnest. Drizzt looked around, realizing that they needed a fair amount of luck.He could already hear the distant rumble of falling snow. Wulfgar scrambled his way out from under the hanging grotto, which had become a cave, already a snow grave, and crawled out to stretch in the morning sun. The barbarian was standing on the edge of the mountain, which sloped steeply down to Luskan in the south, and to the towering peaks in the north, covered in snow and ice.He snorted resignedly, noting that he was clearly on the snow-rain boundary during a blizzard, for the southern slopes looked wetter rather than deep-packed with snow, and the northern regions were blocked by snow. It was as if the gods themselves were calling him back. Wulfgar nodded.Maybe that's exactly what it is.Perhaps the storm was just an analogy to the road he was facing in his life.The easy way was south, as he had come out of Luskan.The road clearly called to him, showing him a path that could avoid difficult terrain. The passionate savage laughed at all this symbolism, at how nature seemed to push him back into a more peaceful and easy life in this way.He picked up his backpack, and the poorly balanced pheasant knife that replaced Aegis' Fang, and trekked north.